Stéphane
Mallarmé was born in Paris in 1842. He taught English in from 1864
in Tournon, Besançon, Avignon and Paris until his retirement in
1893. Malarmé began writing poetry at an early age under the influence
of Charles Baudelaire. His first poems started to appear in magazines
in the 1860s. Mallarmé's most well known poems are L'Aprés
Midi D'un Faun (The Afternoon of a Faun) (1865), which
inspired Debussy's tone poem (1894) of the same name and was illustrated
by Manet. Among his other works are Hérodiade (1896)
and Toast Funèbre (A Funeral Toast), which
was written in memory of the author Théopile Gautier. Mallarmé's
later works include the experimental poem Un Coup de Dés
(1914), published posthumously.
From the 1880s Mallarmé was the center of a group of french writers
in Paris, including André Gide and Paul Valéry, to whom he
communicated his ideas on poetry and art. According to his theories, nothing
lies beyond reality, but within this nothingness lies the essence of perfect
forms and it is the task of the poet to reveal and crystallize these essences.
Mallarmé's poetry employs condensed figures and unorthodox syntax.
Each poem is build around a central symbol, idea, or metaphor and consists
on subordinate images that illustrate and help to develop the idea. Mallarmé's
vers
libre and word music shaped the 1890s Decadent movement.
For the
rest of his life Mallarmé devoted himself to putting his literary
theories into practice and writing his Grand Oeuvre (Great Work). Mallarmé
died in Paris on September 9, 1898 without completing this work.